


Modified Design

by mrhd



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 07:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5576123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhd/pseuds/mrhd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lan Fan and Ling discuss tattoos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Modified Design

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nahterpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nahterpie/gifts).



“Lan Fan, I’m thinking about getting a tattoo,” Ling says one day, out of the blue.

Lan Fan looks up from her book to meet his eyes. She’s not very familiar with tattoos, except for Scar’s and the oroborus that had marked the homunculi, and the quiet intense look in Ling’s eyes tells her that he’s thinking about something on an emotional level, so she chooses her next words carefully. “Please don’t get one on your face, my Lord.”

Ling laughs and something in him relaxes, just a little and Lan Fan allows herself a small smile. “But what do you _think_?” he insists.

“Are you asking my opinion or my permission? You know you don’t need it.”

Ling’s face grows serious then. “I value your opinion,” he tells her. “Very much so.”

“It would depend on what and where,” she says honestly. “I would advise against anything too…potentially controversial.”

“What about something small? On the back of my hand.” Absentmindedly, Ling rubs at the back of his left hand. “A small circle of sorts.”

“An ouroboros?” Lan Fan meets Ling’s intense gaze. Quite honestly, she’s not sure what she thinks. That marking had once meant monsters and sometimes she still sees it on an eye in her dreams, before she wakes up with supposedly impossible pain flaring in her left arm. But she knows that it’s different for Ling. Greed had been his friend, someone he had worked with, just like he works with her, with Fu. Ling doesn’t care for people casually, and Lan Fan knows he misses him. But Lan Fan hadn’t really known the homunculus, had resented him for taking control of Ling. “It’s not a symbol with positive connotations,” she says eventually.

Ling’s look turns thoughtful. “Not many actually know that it means.”

 _The ones who matter to you do_ , she thinks, but doesn’t say.

She’s silent for long enough that Ling speaks again. “You don’t like the idea.”

“I…understand it,” she says carefully. “I know Greed was your friend. But I didn’t know him, not really. I knew the others more.”

Ling hums thoughtfully and returns to the political papers in front of him.

Lan Fan returns to her automail maintenance, and thinks the subject dropped. She feels somewhat bad; she hates it when she puts a damper on the prince’s excitement.  
  


* * *

  
But the matter isn’t dropped after all. It’s a while later, several weeks, before Ling approaches her with a piece of paper.

She takes it, expecting text, despite the paper’s small size. But it’s a drawing. Familiar and different at the same time. The first thing she notices is the snake eating its own tail; an ouroboros. But it’s different than she remembers. Bradley’s had had a collection of separate triangles in the center of the snake’s circle. But the drawing has another circle in the center, a circle with a star drawn in it.

“You’ve modified the design.”

Ling nods. He looks cautiously pleased. “May Chang helped me. The circle in the middle is the transmutation circle she uses, both for healing and battle."

“Isn’t it a bit dangerous to have an active transmutation circle on your person?” Lan Fan asks.

“I’m not an alchemist,” Ling says, shrugging. “Besides,” he continues, pointing to a small part of the circle, “it doesn’t actually connect.”

It doesn’t.

Lan Fan studies the design for a few moments, trying to follow Ling’s thought process. The snake as a reminder of Greed, his friend. The circle as a reminder of what they’d done, what they could do. A balance, between kindness and strength. She smiles, looking up from the paper to Ling.

“I like it,” she says.

Ling grins back at her. “I hear the process of getting a tattoo is painful,” he says. “Would you like to come with me? I might need your support.”

“Of course,” Lan Fan says. “I shall tell you of the pain of automail surgery to distract you.”

**Author's Note:**

> For the FMA Secret Santa Exchange (2015)!


End file.
